Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Cnidarians

On Monday a storm system hypothetically passed by, but really we didn't get rained on much... Out we went to Tongue Point at Salt Creek, for a minus tide.

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There was a busload of 8th graders there from a school in Spokane (way East, almost to Idaho). They had all just passed their classroom marine biology identification exam, and were now supposed to find at least 110 different organisms out in the tidepools for reals... rushing around on the bottom of the sea and calling to each other and waving their identification sheets. 110 organisms, oh my. There seemed to be about 110 of the kids, too, though really not.

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We didn't get too far out near the edge, didn't really see wonders (or urchins), but one of the kids found us a big purple sea star in a crevice...

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Tubeworms (Click for larger image.)

Blood Star (Click for larger image.)

The day was full of anemones. Aggregating anemones, Anthopleura elegantissima. Giant green anemones, Anthopleura xanthogrammica. Somehow I never before understood that below the tentacle disk is a tube-shaped body, until I saw a big one kind of collapsed into a little pool. (What was I thinking? That they were flat like sand dollars?) Some anemone links (1)(2)(3)(4)(5).

Giant green anemone (Click for larger image.)

Aggregating anemone (Click for larger image.)

Aggregating anemone, covered in silt (Click for larger image.)

The kids left, we left. The critters got a rest from prying eyes, the crabs probably all happily emerged from their cracks.